Sixpoint 3 Beans Part Deux

[link to podcast page]
WFMU's Beer Hear! 3 Beans Part Deux Podcast

Last week B.R. and I did a side by side comparison of the Sixpoint 3 Beans Baltic Porter, made with Romano beans, coffee and cocao, and Montréal's Dieu Du Ciel Péché Mortel, a Coffee Imperial Stout. We found that both beers, while quite different in many ways, share a lot of characteristics.

As I continued to ponder the two beers it occurred to be that many of the characteristics that separated the them could be bridged by another DDC beer, the Aphrodisiaque, or as it's known in the U.S., the Aphrodite. As it turns out, the often irrational Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) thinks that you're so dumb that you'll think that a beer named "Aphrodisiaque" is an actual aphrodisiac (which it probably is, anyway!), so a name change was required. People in Canada are apparently much more sophisticated, and can differentiate a clever name from a literal description. But that's the subject for another post.

We invited our pal Paul from our MBAS homebrew club over to help us with an experiment to blend Péché Mortel with Aphrodite, a 6.5% Cocoa Vanilla Stout, to try to create a beverage that, as closely as possible, approximated the 3 Beans, for no good reason other than it would be fun and a good excuse to share some excellent beers.

The three of us would each try our hand at making the blend. We set out four glasses each, three for the three different beers and one for the blend -- a highball glass for the Péché, a small goblet for the Aphrodite, a wine glass for the 3 Beans and a large goblet for the blend.

Without discussing our techniques prior, we each had a different approach. I started with mixing a 50/50 blend, and found that the aroma was quite muddled, and the flavor favored the coffee bitterness of the Péché. B.R. went heavy on the Péché, while Paul went for a higher ratio of Aphrodite.

You can hear how the experiment unfolded, and how the different blends turned out in this week's podcast. In the end, though, we were left with three incredible beers and one very interesting blend -- and you can't lose with that situation!

East Coast Vs West Coast Punk Rock Brew Tour

[link to podcast page]
WFMU's Beer Hear! East Coast Vs West Coast Podcast

Three years ago, Smuttynose's NY sales rep Pat Fondiller started the East Coast Vs West Coast Brew Tour with two East Coast craft brewers and two from the West Coast. The idea was to take over the taps of a bar while a particular music genre battled over the sound system (think East Coast Hip Hop artists vs. West Coast Hip Hop artists) and the beers battled on the tap towers.

(C) Jan from Sierra Nevada, (R) B.R.

Pat said that the inspiration of the annual event was the fact that all of his music-centric pals drank terrible beer, and this was an excuse to try to get them turned on to the good stuff.

Jeff from Sixpoint, unidentified person, Pat from Smutty and Yvon from Oscar Blues.

We went to Barcade Jersey City, one stop on the 8-city stops on the tour, to talk to Pat about the history of the EC/WC Brew Tour, the schedule for this year's installment, as well as some of his ideas for future tours. One thing he told us was that, continuing with the beer/music collaborative themes, Smuttynose Director of Brewing Operations Dave Yarrington wants to brew a beer called  "B.W.A. -- Straight Out Of Hampton" once that their new facility opens in Hampton, N.H.! Suckers to tha side I know you hate my I.P.A. -- you're gunna get hops!

Barcade JC

Here are all the remaining dates left on the tour:


April 9 Bronx Alehouse -- Bronx, NY
April 10 Birdsall House -- Peekskill, NY
April 11 The Black Sheep Ale House -- Mineola, NY
April 12 Beer Authority -- NYC, NY
April 16 Julians -- Providence, RI
April 17 The Independent -- Providence, RI
April 18 Bar Matchless -- Brooklyn, NY


See ALL the dates for this year on the tour's FaceBook page.

Don't believe in Beer Santa? Now you do.

Sierra's Jan with his pal Liz of WFMU

Barcade Gives Back To Local Community Radio

On Tuesday Oct. 11, 2011 Barcade Jersey City  was the site of a WFMU Meet-Up/impromptu fundraiser for the non-profit free form radio station, headquartered just one PATH station east, near Exchange Place.

Steve K., B.R. and Joe Belock (Cynthia hiding to the left).

The bar donated all tips generated from 4pm-9pm, and then added on another $250, bringing the fundraising take to $587. Not bad for something that was set up less than 7 days earlier. And the radio station ended up being introduced to a number of local bar patrons who were previously unfamiliar with 91.1FM / WFMU.org.

Free soap?! Honey, run the bath water!!!

Patrons were invited to help themselves to WFMU stickers, soap, bottle openers and other promotional items, and then offered to take the "Beer Trivia Challenge" -- answer one beer trivia question correctly for a swank Brooklyn Brewery ball cap, a Gritty McDuff's t-shirt or another "big ticket" prize! And if the answer was wrong, participants still had a chance to win by stumping the trivia master with their own beer trivia question!

In honor of WFMU, Sixpoint Brewery (who are big fans of the station) agreed to rename two of their beers for the occasion. Specialized tap handles were created for the 'WFM-brU" beer, an american pale ale, and the "FREEDOM IS FREE FOAM" (a rif on the station's FREE FORM format), which was a Belgian style wheat beer.

Don't be surprised if Barcade JC host another WFMU event in March, during the station's annual 2-week on-air fundraising marathon!

4th from the left: "Free Foam".

4th from the left: "WFM-brU"!

Mondial De La Bière

The trip to the 2011 Mondial De La Biére in Montreal started with a 12 hour train ride -- from NYC? Hey, that's only twice as long as it takes to drive, and not much longer than it took Henry Hudson. But you can't drink SIXPOINT in a can and read about beer while driving, so that's alright!

First stop in Montreal -- DIEU DU CIEL!

It was Mercredi Noir (Black Wednesday), a dark beer special that evening. But the dark stuff was being held back until 10pm, when the Mondial folks would arrive. So, until then we enjoyed the well executed BASSE MESSE, a nice light Kölsch -- a style rarely even attempted outside of its place of origin. Also, a crazy, sour, wild mango beer called SOLSTICE D'ETE AUX MANGUES (Mango summer solstice) -- leave it to DDC to make something wildly unique and interesting. Also, a tasty Helles called HELIUM (an important note on this one in a later blog entry) and another interesting one -- a spruce beer (ANNEDD'ALE) which was about as close as you could ever come to drinking a pine tree... but a nice pinetree! Seriously, I made some album/book shelves last week, cutting some pine wood, and it was much like that very pleasant pine experience. [A much more contemplative and careful analysis of this very special beer is made in a later post. The prior description is that of an over-tired, under-beered traveler.]

Once the dark stuff began to flow, we were treated to... well, EVERYTHING! Look at the picture above -- that's what we drank! At least between the both of us. If you note the ABV of those beers and the lateness of the day, then you can understand the brevity of the post. More on the actual Fest in subsequent posts! [I know that may seem lazy, but bear in mind... we were up at 7am, rode a train for 12 hours, endured TWO customs checks -- the US wanting to look at us LEAVING our country and the Canadians wanting to look at us ENTERING their country.]